Björk Town

Dec 2007

An Icelandic metropolis is inverting protocol by building its public art first and the actual city second. French graphic design duo Mathias Augustyniak and Michael Amzalag, known as M/M (Paris), have cast a life-size bronze “tree” formed by letters from an alphabet they invented for the cover of Björk’s 2004 album Medúlla. This winter they will “plant” the tree in the center of a planned, but not yet built, community outside of Reykjavik. “Trees are very rare in Iceland,” says Augustyniak. The pair collaborated with Icelandic artist Gabríela Fridriksdóttir, a friend of Björk’s, to make the tree’s seven fantastical “fruits” (they look like something “in between mammals and fish,” says Augustyniak), and French author Stéphanie Cohen will write a children’s book about the tree’s origins.